The Mission
by 1234BlueLagoon
Summary: Kitt has difficulty adjusting to life as a civilian after Michael gets married, until he finds his new mission.


Kitt knew that his mission would begin soon.

Ever since Michael Knight had married, the missions had changed. Of course, there was still the occasional mission where they would track a criminal across five states and eventually catch him using one of Michael's crazy schemes. But these days, Bonnie frowned upon that kind of activity. And Michael was too smart to make his wife mad. That was why they rarely did those missions anymore.

Kitt sat silent in the garage. The mission would be here soon.

These new missions were what had kept Kitt sane. When his purpose was defined as protecting the life of his driver, no one realized that he and his driver would become such great friends. When Michael left the Foundation to live a new life as a married man, he had given Kitt the option of joining him or staying on with FLAG. After much deliberation, Kitt had decided to join Michael. But all Kitt had ever known was stopping ne'er-do-wells, and the large periods of no activity had started to take a toll on him. Every time Michael or Bonnie needed to get the groceries, Kitt started insisting on driving. This annoyed them, especially Michael, who loved to drive. In the end, Kitt hardly had anything to do. And with no activity, he began to get bored.

Kitt turned on the air conditioner. The mission was going to begin in about two minutes.

It turns out that Kitt needed activity, and that a bored supercar is the last thing anyone would ever want. Michael began to worry when he found out what Kitt was capable of. He started to suspect something was wrong when Kitt hired an interior decorator for the garage. While he did not argue that Kitt deserved his space, he did not like it when Kitt added an extra floor over the garage. Next, the neighbors started complaining about the tire tracks in their backyard-tracks that seemingly drove into their pools, and appeared muddier on the other side of the pool. One family even claimed to see tracks at the bottom of their pool. After that, people started to inexplicably fear Kitt, and Michael had the distinct feeling that Kitt was encouraging it. Bonnie didn't believe him until she saw the mailman go out of his way to make their house his last stop, even though their house was in the middle of the street.

Kitt turned the air conditioner down a little. The cabin was too cold.

When Michael finally realized that there was a problem, Kitt had already gone too far. He had styled himself as a punk, and was constantly out of the garage. The police kept coming to the door to warn them and their neighbors that a speeding Trans-Am was eluding the authorities and was potentially a public hazard. Neighborhood hoodlums started avoiding their street, and Bonnie once overheard children call their house "the place where the dragon lived". Once they realized what was going on, Michael and Bonnie spent many sleepless nights worrying about him. Michael desperately worried about what to do, when Bonnie revealed that she was pregnant.

Suddenly, Kitt started to appear in the house more often. He was around to bring Bonnie to the store when she needed a vehicle, and was able to warn Michael when Bonnie's hormones were about to spike. When Bonnie called her husband to say that her water broke, she said that Kitt was driving her to the hospital.

Kitt turned up the air conditioning in his cabin again.

Kitt did not like to remember that incident. He had almost chosen not to listen to Bonnie's frantic call, and instead continue what he was doing. Afterwards he would always be ashamed of himself for even thinking of abandoning Bonnie in her time of need.

That was really the moment when he began to change back to normal. He had only been showing up for Bonnie out of his sense of duty, but he had no intention of leaving his life on the streets. Now, looking back, it took something outside of himself to 'pull him out of it.' He could not do it on his own. In this case, it took a newborn little girl born in his cabin, a girl who would have died if she had been born anywhere else. Once he saved her life, he realized that the near tragedy was a blessing in disguise. It took a while to break all of his bad habits, but with help from Michael and Bonnie, and with the baby as his new inspiration, he did it. The neighbors no longer feared his house.

Kitt's mission was here.

The handle on the garage door leading into the house turned, and a second later a girl about nine years old walked in. She was holding a crying baby.

"He won't sleep," she said, "Mom and Dad tried everything, but they're too tired. They asked if you would take him."

"Of course," said Kitt, opening his door, "But why are you up tonight? Usually your father brings me the baby."

"I can't sleep either," said the girl, carrying the baby over, "I had a really bad nightmare."

"Would you like to tell me about it?" asked Kitt.

"Can I?" she asked, "I'm not too old for a ride?"

"Of course not," said Kitt, "And you have slept in your own bed for some time now. I do not think your parents would mind."

"Yay!" said the girl, "I haven't had a night ride with you in a long time."

She placed the baby in the baby seat. As soon as the baby realized where he was he stopped crying. She then ran over to the driver's seat and sat down.

Kitt started playing classical music for the baby as he backed out of the driveway.

"Tell me about your nightmare," he prompted the girl.

As they passed houses and fields and forests in the dark, the girl talked. The baby soon fell asleep, lulled by the rhythmic sounds of the road and by the rolling motion of the car. The older girl was soon reassured by Kitt that the events occurring in her dream were ludicrous, and were all due to an overwhelming fear of her upcoming test. To prove that she had nothing to fear, he began quizzing her on the topics, and calculated that she knew them quite well.

After the girl was reassured, she asked Kitt to play her favorite music-the one song he always played that soothed her to sleep when she was younger. As he played she watched the moon and stars out of the window, and slowly drifted off to sleep.

Even though both of his charges were still asleep, Kitt continued to drive down the well-worn path with the music still playing. He knew that he would continue to drive this way throughout the rest of the night.

But Kitt didn't mind. After all, this was his new mission.

And with the lives of these children in his proverbial hands, this mission was too important to get it wrong.

THE END


End file.
